Another crack in my heart
by zippizappi
Summary: Caleb in the Marin's basement, getting ready to leave Rosewood and Hanna behind. Set in 1x18. Sort of a missing scene before things turn lovey-dovey for Haleb...


**ANOTHER CRACK IN MY HEART  
**

* * *

I stare at that stain on the carpet and feel a tinge of guilt in the pit of my stomach. I hope that nobody will ever notice it. But moreover, I hope that she won't get into any trouble for it. It's just juice; I accidentally spilled it when I nearly jumped out of my skin in reaction to a commotion I had heard going on in the room right above my head at an unfamiliar time.

I thought I had figured out the pattern in which Hanna and her mom would use their bathroom or prepare meals in the kitchen, so I was kind of surprised when I heard someone open and close the door of the refrigerator late at night. And since I didn't have any cleaning utensils at hand, I was left trying to remove that juice stain with one of my shirts.

When that didn't work all that well – and why would it anyway – I knew I had failed. Like so many times before in my life.

In the past ten years, I always managed to deal with my failures without much of an effort. I had nobody else to disappoint but myself. And I can no longer be disappointed that easily. When you've had a life as crappy as mine, you don't have positive expectations anymore. It's that simple.

But today, I'm feeling disappointed, in a way I haven't felt in a very long time.

I blew it.

Screw the money I could have had in the back pocket of my jeans now. It would have been the dirtiest money I've ever earned.

I blew the one thing that could have made my life just a little bit more worth living.

Hanna.

Sitting on the old worn-out couch in her basement and packing my few remaining pieces of clothing into my bag, I can't help but crack a smile at the simple thought of her spitfire personality.

She's really something. So pretty. So sexy. But also caring and generous. I've never known any girl like her. And I've met a bunch of them… pretty ones, too. But not one of them had been as unique as Hanna Marin. She had managed to rip me out of that funk I'd been in… just by looking at me… seeing me… naked, even.

Numbers and figures. That's what my life had been built on. They're reliable; possibly the only reliable things in my life. I can program a computer any way that I want to. I can write up an algorithm for new hacking devices in a matter of minutes. I'm not dumb. But when it comes to Hanna Marin, my decoding abilities are limited. I see her and I know that what I'm seeing is not what she wants people to acknowledge about her. But I have no idea what that really is. I just can't read her. However, I do feel like she read me. At least until I embarrassed her in the shower that morning.

Binaries and script codes. That's what I'm good at. I love solving math problems. That's better than trying to solve my own anyway. I'm surrounded by numbers. They're in my head from all the locker combinations I've had to memorize. They're in my pockets, printed on neatly rolled up dollar bills that I earned for giving people's phones extra megabytes of RAM. What's in a megabyte? One thousand twenty-four bytes. There, another number. But the only figure that keeps popping up in my tired brain is a ten.

Hanna is a ten. A perfect ten. I don't deserve her.

I hide my face in the palms of my hands, again regretting how I screwed things up today. If only I had dealt with her embarrassment in a different way, less smug… Then maybe, she wouldn't have put up her walls again, making it impossible for both of us to be around each other without feeling awkward and guilty.

I'm such an ass. I'm not worthy of sharing a life with my soulmate.

I hear the clicking of her taupe suede boots as they make their way across the hall and into the kitchen.

She's home. It makes me a little dizzy knowing that we're breathing the same air again. I feel like the scent of her perfume is wafting through the crack of the basement door, filling my nostrils. I greedily soak up what little I get from her. It's all I can do now. As soon as I'll hear the muffled noise of her boots touching down on the steps as she makes her way upstairs – eighteen soft taps until the sounds stop and she's reached the second floor landing – I'll be out of the basement and out of her life forever.

In a final attempt to cover up my traces, I move the small end table about ten inches to the left. It is now no longer an end table, but it perfectly keeps that orange stain out of sight. And it doesn't even stand out in this cluttered space of roughly a hundred square feet. The pitter patter from the room above has stopped, but I never heard it pass by and move up on the stairs, which lets me know that she saw it.

And that she didn't just acknowledge the fact and move on.

Which suddenly gives me hope. And courage. And a desire to go see her angelic face one last time, so strong, my feet start moving on their own volition. I grab my backpack and move on up the raw concrete steps leading to the kitchen on the first floor.

I ignore my usual routine of making sure there's no parental unit in the hallway and quickly open and close the door that marks the border between day and night. Freedom and dreaded loneliness. Love and loss.

I see her standing by the dining table, right where I left my 'goodbye note', a bag of stuff she'd lent to me for the time of my secret stay in her basement. I would have loved to keep one of the shirts that she'd given me as to have something, anything, to remember her by. But that would be wrong. And I wanted to do everything right with her.

Watching her as she checks the bag for random signs of wrongdoing. She's probably looking for another reason to hate me.

But I know that she won't find it. I wish she would find my underlying message to her. I wish that she would find… me…

"Didn't take anything that wasn't mine, Officer," I hear myself say softly to avoid giving her a scare.

She twirls around and allows me to take in her beauty this one last time, her delicate face framed by about a million blonde locks that look like they're as soft as silk. That's what they say, isn't it?

I want to touch her hair but I stop short in a secure distance. I've overstepped my boundaries before. I don't want to make her feel wary again.

She crosses her arms as she asks, "Are you leaving?" Her voice is just as soft, and I detect vulnerability. And… fear?

" _Yes_ ," is what my lips want to utter, but instead I say, "I thought you'd be relieved." My innermost thoughts tumble out of my mouth in an effort to stall the inevitable moment of having to say goodbye.

"Why would you think that?"

Good. _Good. She's not throwing you out of her house. Keep her talking._

"Because you've been treating me like something you'd scrape off your shoe."

 _Not that, you pinhead!_ She looks away, averting my gaze as the reproach hits her guilty conscience. For once, she seems shy and at a loss for words. So cute…

"At least, since our shower," I continue, a little less belligerently.

"Look…," she says and takes a few steps towards me. "I know. I just… I wasn't…" Is she trying to vindicate herself?

"Ready to see that much of me?" I finish the sentence for her in an effort to lighten up the atmosphere that feels so completely charged at this moment. I even manage to smile a little.

It makes her uncomfortable, I can tell because she's not looking at me. "No!" she immediately fends, only to correct herself in the afterthought. "Yes."

"What? And now you think you have to throw down, too?" I know I'm pushing the envelope here but I can't help myself. Or maybe my brain isn't able to handle a normal conversation whenever Hanna is around me. Sarcasm is my friend. After all, it's what's always helped me to make the best of a bad situation. But Hanna isn't seeking retaliation. She helplessly shrugs before her eyes lock with mine.

"What if I don't want to?" For the first time, the shy and probably inexperienced school girl is shining through. I feel like I'm falling even more for her as I speak out loud what she needs to hear from me now.

"It's okay." The words come out easily and I don't have to convince myself that this is the truth. Because it is. I'm not out for a quick hook-up with this girl. Her eyes are still on me as a question leaves her mouth that I didn't expect at all.

"What if I do want to?"

Holy shit. Am I dreaming?

"That's okay, too." I hear myself say but I can't feel my lips move because my stirred up senses don't seem to function properly anymore. I have to try really hard to stay calm even though all I want to do when I see her face so close before me is pull her flush against my body and touch down on those full lips.

And then, seconds later, I feel Hanna wind her arms around my neck and pull me closer before our lips connect.

This can't be real. It's gotta be a dream. Like back when I was spending the night on a park bench in Allentown and I forced myself to think warm things in order to feel less cold. Only then, the girl I imagined getting up, close and personal with didn't have a face. And in my imagination it never felt as good as this feels right here and now. Her lips are so unbelievably soft. I want to lose myself in them and I'm not prepared for the heady sensation which is sweeping over me. My knees want to give way beneath me. Good thing, she's holding me steady.

My hand is grabbing for something to hold on to as well, so I put it to the back of her head, bringing us closer still.

Her lips are moving over mine in an intimate, sensuous caress. Involuntarily, they part as if she was expecting my next move. I gently suck her lower lip into my mouth, nibbling a little before I release it again. A soft moan escapes her, prompting my conscious thought to resurface. Breathlessly, I pull back and I see her face barely an inch away from mine as she opens her big blue eyes. She's looking at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

I quickly lean in to bring our mouths back together again, and she reacts by opening it a little so that I can let my tongue glide over her upper lip. I invade her mouth and continue the caress along the inside of her lip and then over her teeth.

My head is swimming and I can't keep myself from moaning softly when I feel her open her mouth wider. Hesitantly, she touches my tongue with hers, and I join her in a game of touching and stroking and tangling.

I subconsciously notice her hands cupping my face, keeping me in position. Our second kiss is deeper, more passionate and I can't help but feel a sense of satisfaction when I hear her moan again.

The turn of a key in the lock yanks us both apart violently as I scramble for cover before Hanna's mother catches us together in her kitchen. I grab my backpack and hide behind the kitchen counter when Mrs. Marin enters the room carrying two large grocery bags in her arms. Meanwhile, Hanna hides her swollen lips behind the door of the cabinet and grabs a glass from the board.

"Hi, sweetie! How was your day?" Mrs. Marin asks Hanna and puts the bags down on the counter.

"Just another boring day in school, mom. Nothing much going on, you know," Hanna says to her mom before she quickly chugs down a full glass of tap water.

Mrs. Marin starts putting away the groceries and then notices the trash bag sitting on the dining table. "What's this bag doing here? Have you been cleaning?"

"No, just decluttering my life a little. You know, getting rid of a couple of things and holding on only to what's really important to me."

Sneaky little liar. She's not even blushing a little.

"Oh, good. That's good. I support that!" Mrs. Marin says with a smile and looks around in the kitchen. "Shoot, I must have forgotten my purse in the car. I'll be back in a sec. Could you please put these things in the fridge for me? Thank you!"

When the clicking of her high heels is out of earshot, I charge past the refrigerator and follow Hanna who's already standing by the open basement door. Our gazes meet for a split second and we both smile a little before I start descending and before I manage to say the dumbest thing imaginable in this situation. "Thanks!"

Then, the door closes in front of me and I'm standing in the dark. Alone.

And so fucking aroused.

I find the light switch and stumble down the stairs anyway with shaking limbs.

Phew! That was close. I take a deep breath as I'm trying to come to terms with what has just happened between Hanna and me.

Now what? I wasn't expecting to find myself down here in this room again. I hear the front door go shut above, and soon enough, the noise of female chit-chat is filling the void that I seem to have fallen into and that I can't seem to block out in my hazy state of mind.

I drop my backpack onto the shaggy carpet on the floor, next to that old, worn out couch that felt a little bit like home in the last couple of days, and sit down. I let my hands rake through my hair, clueless about what I am supposed to do now. Should I interpret our little rendezvous in the kitchen as permission to stay? Would it be better to leave, especially now that we're… we're… what are we?

Minutes are ticking by as I listen in on the commotion going on in the room above me. Time and again, my empty stomach is growling and I wish I had grabbed some fruit or snack to go from the kitchen counter while I had the chance.

For lack of better things to do, I get up and pace the small room. Ten feet from left to right, tops. My hands can touch the ceiling if I stretch out my arms. No window, no bathroom. But it's the coziest place I've slept in a while, trust me. And with Hanna living… sleeping, breathing… in close proximity… it's just about the best place I can imagine to be and starve.

I lose my jacket and all of a sudden, the door opens and the room goes dark. In a knee-jerk reaction, I want to lay down on the floor, but I can't see a thing because my eyes are still trying to adjust to the change in light. Before I can figure out what to do, a plastic sack is being tossed down the stairs before the door falls shut again, leaving the room in darkness and my pulse racing.

When my eyes are finally able to detect some outlines of my surroundings just by the light that is sneaking through the door crack and a small vent slot high up on the wall, I cut my way to the bag at the bottom of the stairs. It doesn't take long for me to know what it is.

A message. From Hanna. Telling me to stay. Delirious with joy, my heart skips a beat.

The stuff I had borrowed from her is in there plus a few new things that she must have added. Using my phone display to have more light, I find a Mars bar, a banana and a tiny bottle of orange juice and shove them into my backpack to save for later. I can't possibly eat right now. I check the bag one more time and find another item that wasn't there before when I placed the trash bag on the Marin's kitchen table: a scrap of paper with a phone number on it.

Why on earth we haven't exchanged numbers yet is beyond me. I decide not to dwell on it and add the digits to my phone's contacts. I whisper the beautifully even sequence of numbers twice and that's all it takes me to have it memorized by heart – possibly forever – because that's how my numeric memory works.

I place the phone in my lap and settle into the ragged couch cushions. They've never felt this comfortable, and my messed up mind is already wandering places I shouldn't allow. It was only a kiss.

OK, two kisses. Two rather meaningful kisses.

A thought comes into my head. I have to send Hanna my number as well. I take the phone back into my hands and open up the text menu. And then, I just sit there and ponder what I should write. But I still can't think straight yet. I'm not as good with words as I am with math and technology. I mean how am I supposed to be able to express myself verbally when a girl like Hanna is messing with my brain? My mouth doesn't want to speak, and my hands don't want to type letters into a phone right now. That is all my body can think of at this moment.

Fuck, Rivers! Think! Be creative! Be sensitive! Be funny!

I can't come up with any quick-witted messages to pass on my phone number to her. I scoff and let my thumb hover over the keyboard for a long while. Slowly, I start typing.

 _I hate bananas._

There. I quickly hit 'send' and throw the phone to one corner of the sofa, afraid of dropping it like a hot iron with my trembling hands once her response is delivered back to me.

As I sit there and wait, I'm recapping our intimate moment from before. It isn't until now that her words are really sinking in. Did she really say she wanted to throw down for me, too? Does this mean she… Does she really want to… Is she, by any chance, laying on her bed upstairs, waiting for me to come and undress her? My pulse involuntarily quickens, and I have a hard time getting my act together.

My phone gives a short buzz, startling me out of my thoughts. Impatiently, I hurtle towards it. There's a text from an unknown number. Damn! A business enquiry. Normally, I would text right back, sealing the deal, happy to keep those dollar bills coming in.

But today, nothing's normal… by any means. I got kissed today! By the most beautiful girl walking on this planet! I can still sense the taste of her spearmint tongue lingering in my mouth.

Fuck, why isn't she texting back? Did I offend her? Is she like the world's biggest banana lover? Oh no, wait! Get your mind out of the gutter!

I lay down on the couch, keeping that phone clutched to my chest. But it just won't give another buzz. There's a commotion upstairs and I'm so strung up, I'm holding my breath.

Suddenly, the wooden door creaks and a pale beam of light appears on the wall for a short second before the room turns dark again. I lay absolutely still, unsure of what's going on as I'm facing away from the stairs.

"Caleb?" a familiar voice whispers, breaking the silence, and I audibly exhale. In an instant, I'm back on my feet, and in spite of the dark surroundings my sweaty palms immediately find the curve of her waist.

"Hi!" I murmur close to her ear, noticing her wet hair. I breathe in the sweet smell of her shampoo and inevitably, I'm reminded of that short awkward moment we shared in the shower. I smelled like a fruit basket for hours afterwards… Clean, but at the same time feeling dirtier than ever. But on Hanna, it's actually very nice.

"I'm going out with the girls tonight," she says as she wraps her arms around me. "I thought I'd come by to say goodnight."

"You're making me lose my mind is what you're doing," I breathe, my eyes riveted to her full, desirable lips, the outline of which barely visible in the twilight of the room. I feel myself drawn towards them inescapably. Before I even know what I'm doing, my lips come into contact with hers. I kiss her, sweetly and reverently. It's doing all sorts of strange things to my stomach.

My hands find their way under her t-shirt and slide tenderly across her skin before coming to rest at her sides, just below her breasts. That's where I force myself to stop, even if it kills me.

Hanna stirs slightly, and I instantly back away, breaking the kiss. "Sorry," I hiss.

"No!" she gasps and steps closer, letting her hand, which is resting around my neck, make its way into my hair, allowing the long strands to flow between her fingers.

"So… You… You…," I trail off as I get distracted by her, bringing my body flush with hers.

"I… I…," she hesitates as I assist her efforts by looping my arms around her back again. We stay like that for a long moment, just getting used to this new intimate contact. Body pressed against body. It feels like years of repression on both our sides are warring with need.

"You just came by for a goodnight kiss?" I finally manage to croak and I bring my hand to the back of her head, burying it in her wet hair, tilting it up slightly to accommodate the height difference between us. I move my other hand to her chin and start tracing the outline of her plum lips with my fingers. We're so close, I can feel her heart racing against my heaving chest.

She opens her mouth to say something, but her voice is being cut off when my lips are landing hard on hers.

Need won.

She reacts immediately, returning the kiss with the same intensity. Her free hand lands at the small of my back, dipping beneath the waistband of my jeans as she tilts her head for a new angle.

It's only a minute before she pulls away, and I groan in protest. But she didn't go far. No more than a heartbeat later, she leans back in for another kiss. This time when our lips meet, something changes. What started out as an innocent kiss quickly turns into something that seems to bring every nerve ending in my body to life. She must feel it, too, because she stumbles towards me, having to place her hands at my waist to keep from falling over.

She's shifting in my arms, trying to find a better position from which to attack my mouth with her swollen lips. I'm trying hard to fight the lightness in my head to retain my footing.

We kiss with increased passion, tongues tangling. Tasting each other. Pouring our entire hearts into this kiss.

When it eventually ends, we both gasp for breath. I could go on like this all night, but I know that it won't happen. We need to be careful. And if stealing a kiss every now and then during our time together at school or in the mornings when her mother is taking a shower or late in the afternoon before Mrs. Marin comes back from work is all I can get, I won't take any chances to get her in trouble. Still, I wish she didn't have to go already. We've barely spoken a word, and there are so many things I want to tell her. So many questions about her that I want to ask…

She clears her throat and takes a few steps backwards, bumping into the table that is blocking what little there is of space by the sofa. "Yeah, uh… I better go," she says as she steadies herself. "Do you… want me to make you a sandwich… or something… before I leave?"

And get another chance to see her before I close my eyes for the night?

"No, it's alright," I hear myself say, knowing it's better that way. And besides, she'd be all dolled up and ready to go out with her friends. She wouldn't let me ruin her makeup anyway.

"But you hate bananas," she counters, stalling the inevitable moment of having to part.

"Nah, it's OK. Really," I try to convince her, adding, "That Mars bar will totally do."

"OK."

"OK."

Through the dimness I see her turn around and walk up the stairs. About half way up, she stops to look back at me. "Caleb?"

She's stalling. Again. A glimmer of hope is rising in my chest. "Yes?"

"I'm really glad you're staying."

I think about her words for a second. No one has ever been happy to have me around. "Yeah, me too," I quietly admit.

"Goodnight!" she says, her voice barely above a whisper as she's standing right by the door.

"Goodnight!" I murmur and watch her lean her ear against the wood for a moment to check if the coast is clear before she finally sneaks out.

Alone again in the dark, I take a seat on the couch and grab the banana from my backpack. Slowly, I start to peel it. Before, I didn't want to admit to her that I've never eaten a banana in my entire life. That just wasn't on the menu in my family or any of the foster households with an income scarcely reaching minimum wage.

Little by little I can feel my hunger subside. It was good. Not sure if it will last me until morning, though, since I'm so wound up. My mind is drifting and going overboard just imagining seeing her again in the morning. The weird feeling in my stomach returns, and I know that this time it's a sign of a new and different kind of hunger. I'm yearning. For her kisses. For her touch. For her to feel the same way about me. And I never want this feeling to end.

My phone beeps, and as I look at the incoming message from Jenna, I know that it irrevocably will…

* * *

 **THE END**

* * *

 _Hi guys! Wow, it's been a while since my last upload... :-/_

 _About this story: I've always felt that in between Hanna and Caleb's first kiss in 1x18 and their lovey-dovey breakfast rendezvous in 1x19, there was something missing. This is what I came up with. Thought I'd try something else for a change...  
_

 _Let me know what you think, drop me a note here or on Twitter. ILY  
_

 _Zip_


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